Voyage
to the Bottom
of the Sea--
Octo Attack!

That tickles!



    Many of the stories recounted in L.B. Abbott's book, Special Effects--Wire, Tape and Rubber Band Style are illuminating and amusing.  One such is the description of how one of the movie's most memorable effects sequences was created--the giant octopus attack.  As Abbott wrote, "The reason for using a four foot model of the Seaview for shooting the octopus attack was that the only octopi available at the time were just slightly larger than one's hand and the four foot model made the octopus appear huge."

Say, this might be fun to play with.       The scene was shot in a tank about eight by four by four feet set up on a stage.  This special set-up was used because the water had to be cooled and salinated to make the octopus feel at home and it was impossible to create these conditions in Fox's larger Sersen Lake.

    Abbott recounts, "Before each take, the handler would place the octopus we were going to use in a large tub and tease it until it expended its supply of ink.  The handler would then very slowly and carefully place the octopus on the nose of the sub, which was being held by its tail by an effects man standing in the tank just off-screen.  

Let me see if I can latch on to this puppy.


Ackkk! What I do--stick my tenticle in an electric outlet?     "Obviously, the octopus would not get on the submarine's nose on its own volition.  When it seemed attached to the sub, the handler would make an exit very slowly . . . Often the octopus would fall of the sub before we had any usable footage and the handler would retrieve it in a net and the procedure would be repeated."

    After a long day of shooting involving many different octopi, the needed footage was in the can.  For the shot of the octopus attacking the sub, they used what would otherwise have been a throw-away shot of the octopus falling off Seaview's nose printed in reverse, so the creature seemed, very realistically to be attacking the sub.  The effect of the electrical charge was animated and composited optically.

I don't know--maybe an octopus could get used to this kind of thing.

Better haul out the extra-strength Windex again, Lee.

      "There were some points-of-view shots," Abbott concludes, "of the tentacles fastened to the nose ports as seen from inside the sub.  They were a matte composite of an octopus shot from outside a small tank." 
    Of course, much of the movie footage, shot with more budget and under greater control than was possible for the series in general, wound up being reused on the TV show in order to extend the budget--and why not?  It was too cool not to reuse.

Octo Attack photos courtesy NeoLASE

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(1)
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(2)
Rear
Screen
Projection

(3)
Mechanical
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(4)
The
Green
Tank

(5)
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(6)
Sfx
Octo
Attack

(7)
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Deadly
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(8)
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10)
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L.B
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